Uruapan Folk Art Market

Welcome to the Social Club, Las Curvas......my newest folk art purchase at this year's Folk Art Market in Uruapan. I wish you could see the Folk Art Market that covers about three city blocks in the big plaza in Uruapan. You can find anything there....all handmade....from the most utilitarian of things like wood spoons to huge ceramic pineapples, painted masks, catrinas, and wonderful clay figures. The problem is that there are so many choices that your vision is overwhelmed. Most of the clay figures and painted masks are in one long row that is packed solid with pieces.....colors and shapes so close together that it is hard to focus on one item. Your eye wants to take it all in while your brain is saying overload.

This piece is from the same folk artists that I purchased a piece from last year, Narciso Lucas Rafael and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Diego Margarito. They are from Ocumicho in Michocan. I love their color palette and I love the whimsy in their pieces. Last year I purchased a procession coming from the church but this year.....The Social Club. There is so much going on in the piece that I can't capture it all in a photograph without spending hours on the setup and lighting and even then I'm not sure that one image would get it all. Just in case you can't see it, there is a barefoot dancer and a pole dancer, a cowboy with a gun, another cowboy crying in his red handkerchief, everyone drinking beer, a record player with speakers on the walls. And there are the wonderful Coconut palms. I didn't know that there were coconut palms when I said I would buy the piece but Narciso said that they were a part of the piece. I was shocked and delighted when we unpacked the work. They are delightful and add so much to the piece.

While we were looking at the piece, Narciso and Maria were both there. We asked Narciso if he had made the piece from someplace he had been. Maria's sharp glance prompted the reply from Narciso that, no, he had never been there but he had dreamed it.

Although I have bought several ceramic pieces over the years that we have traveled in Mexico, I've never been drawn to the folk art clay pieces until the last few years. And honestly most of them are interesting but Narciso and Maria's pieces are the first ones I've really been compelled to buy. Now I have a problem.......I don't have good spaces to display them and Ned says we aren't going to buy another house!